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Sunday, July 1

Changes to Early Intervention

The Secretary of Education is proposing regulatory changes to the Early Intervention programs that service babies and toddlers with disabilities as a result of changes in 2004 to the Americans with Disablities Act. We all have an opportunity to comment on changes we would like. You can make comments until July 23rd.

2 comments:

It takes some thought as we've had a wonderful experience through EI and have benefited enourmously from their assistance.

Our EI coordinator told us that they used to have speech and physical therapists on staff who did home visits. That has not been the case since we've been involved and consequently we seek these services elsewhere. So all that comes to my mind is to increase funding so these valuable positions can be returned.

I would like to see the usage of vouchers to cover early intervention services. Parents of a child enrolled in Early Intervention would be given a monetary voucher. I could then select the best program for Drew and use the voucher to pay for the services he receives.

Also, I think that the IFSP's are a joke and would like to see those corrected. We meet every three months to discuss it and I still don't understand why. The lady just checks a bunch of boxes, has us sign something and we go on. It is serving no purpose and I feel it is a huge waste of my time and yet another appointment I have to attend.

I think that home visits are essential. It gets so hard dragging Drew from appointment to appointment and having him "out of his element". How nice if they could come to us in an enviroment he is comfortable with. We aren't talking about school age children, which can adapt, we are talking about babies that need services and I think the better we can make if for them the more effective the intervention will be. But in order for that to happen, funding has to be secured so that all children can receive the same benefits. Right now in Columbus there are some families that receive home services and others that receive center based services. We receive center based, which is fine, but it is sometimes exhausting.

Like you we have had an excellent experience with EI. Our parent/infant educator through RIHP is AWESOME! She has been so helpful. I just think there are some things in the overall political process of the program that could be corrected.

Welcome!

Our son Drew was born in September 2006 with profound hearing loss in both ears, which means he is deaf. His hearing loss was caused by Connexin 26. At 8 1/2 months of age, Drew became the youngest child in Ohio to receive simultaneous, bilateral cochlear implants.

This blog is a record of our efforts to "turn on" Drew's ears, and our daily adventures with our bionic boy, and his older sister.